Well, here it is January 6 and we got our first snow last night. This morning we had probably between two and three inches on the ground. So far, 2017 has been pretty much a bummer, weather wise… we’re wondering if the sun is going to take the year off.
Of course, we’re lucky — most of the time we don’t have to get out in the snow. That’s not always the case, but most of the time we can just stay home. Seems like in recent years, snow storms, or “events” are hyped by the media. I understand that governments would like to get people off the roads so they can clean them faster and thus cut down on (especially) overtime costs. And the merchants love all the hype because it gets people to stock up on supplies, so theoretically that puts more money into the economy.
The fact is, it’s winter and it snows — has for as long as I can remember. Even though every year we get snow, it still seems to take people by surprise. Snow is a funny situation — the kids love it — they play in it, build snowmen/people, throw snowballs, etc. All that makes even us adults smile. But then we adults move into the survivalist mode… we stock up on food, gas up the car, make sure we have plenty of gas, wood, etc. And of course we grumble about having to get out to go to work, or for some other reason.
Then we watch the news — boy to they love a “crisis.” They tell and show us all the trapped motorists and more blizzards with people trapped in pubs, or gas stations, or wherever. No wonder snow makes us grownups grumpy.
Thinking back a lot of years, I don’t remember all this hype… it snowed and we cleaned off the driveway, streets and our cars and went about our business. It appears that we’ve become less appreciative of snow, less tolerant of winter and just generally more annoyed at it’s inconvenience.
It’d be nice if we could all just take the snow as it comes and enjoy it… maybe even enjoy the company of our neighbors we talk to while shoveling… goodness knows, we don’t talk to them very often. And what the heck, we’re probably not too old to build a snowman, or go sledding or maybe even throw a snowball or two. Or… we could just be grumpy.
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